SIOUX CITY, a city and the county-seat of Woodbury county,
Iowa, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Big Sioux with the Missouri
river, about 156 m. N.W. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890) 37,806;
(1900) 33,111, of whom 6592 were foreign-born (including 1460
Swedish, 1176 German and 1054 Norwegian); (1910, census)
47,828. It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the
Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis
& Omaha, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Illinois Central,
and the Great Northern railways. The bluffs approach the
Missouri more closely at this point than elsewhere in the state,
so that little more than manufacturing establishments and
business blocks are built on the bottom lands, and the residences
are spread over the slope and summit of the bluffs. The city has
a public library (housed in the city hall) and eight parks
(including Riverside on the Big Sioux), with a total area of more
than 500 acres. Among the principal buildings are the city hall,
the post office, the Young Men's Christian Association building,
and the High School. There are several boat clubs and a
country and golf club. Two miles S. of the city is a monument
to Sergeant Charles Floyd of the Lewis and Clark expedition,
who died here in 1804; and 1 m. W. of the city is the grave of
War Eagle, a Sioux chief. Among the educational institutions
are Morningside College (Methodist Episcopal, 1894), 3 m. from
the business centre of the city, which had in 1908-1909 34
instructors and 672 students; the Sioux City College of Medicine
(1889), and St Mary's School. The principal hospitals are the
Samaritan, the St Joseph's Mercy, and the German Lutheran.
Sioux City is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. The Chicago,
Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Great Northern, and the Chicago,
Saint Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha have shops here; meat packing
is an important industry, and the city has large stock yards.
As a manufacturing centre, it ranked first in 1900 and third in
1905 among the cities of the state; the value of its factory
product in 1905 was $14,760,751. Its manufactures include
slaughtering and meat-packing products, cars and car repairing,
linseed oil, bricks and tiles (made from excellent clay found in
and near the city). The city does a large wholesale and
distributing business. Sioux City was settled about 1850, was
platted in 1854, becoming the headquarters of a United States
Land Office, was incorporated in 1856, and was chartered as a
city in 1857. It was the starting-point of various expeditions
sent against the Sioux Indians of the Black Hills.